Story One: Man arrested for giving wicked wedgies, or snuggies, or melvyns, or whatever you call pulling the underwear over a nerd's head.

Story Two: Fifty Year Old School Teacher Gets Tanked on Cheap Wine, wrecks her van, offers to blow the cop if he lets her go.

Florida, I love you. You're just so fun!

Story #1:
Charles Ross is known for orchestrating outrageous pranks and posting them to Youtube. But this time, the 18-year-old prankster may have gone a step too far.

Ross was arrested for battery Sunday night after he allegedly gave a series of wedgies to moviegoers outside the Carmike Royal Palm 20 in Bradenton, Fla., while a friend filmed the prank, the Bradenton Herald reports.

The underwear prank, which Gawker calls a "wedgie spree," ended badly for Ross when a 20-year-old male victim reported to authorities that Ross grabbed him "by the back of his pants and pulled them up hard," according to the Smoking Gun. Although other victims of the schoolyard prank also came forward, the 20-year-old is the only one seeking charges.

On his Youtube channel, Ross has uploaded video footage of him performing a variety of pranks -- from doing handstands over people to trying out pick-up lines -- but the latest in his compilation is by far one of his most hands-on public displays.

According to the police report obtained by the Smoking Gun, Ross challenged the male victim following the wedgie, "asking if he wanted to hit him."

The Mantee County Sheriff's Office arrested Ross and detained him overnight. He was released on $750 bail, records show, and his court date is set for Feb. 14.

Though Ross' wedgie spree was meant in jest, this is not the first time someone has been arrested for doling out the uncomfortable underwear gag. In 2006, an Albany, N.Y., teacher was arrested for endangering the welfare of a child after allegedly giving a 10-year-old student a wedgie during summer school.

Story #2:
'A' for effort?
Middle school math teacher Mary Maloney allegedly offered oral sex to a police officer after being nabbed for a hit-and-run in Palm Beach County, Fla.

Maloney, 53, was arrested Sunday after she crashed her van into a pickup truck around 8:35 p.m., then took off, according to an arrest report obtained by the Sun Sentinel. A witness to the crash tracked Maloney's car to a parking spot and then called police.

The arresting officer said he found an empty gallon jug of wine behind Maloney's driver's seat and "immediately smelled the strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from her person," according to WPTV. The report states that her eyes were glassy, bloodshot, and partially closed.
The officer that drove Maloney to the police station noted that she asked him "How much do I need to pay you to just let me go? Don't you understand I am a school teacher?"

She then allegedly offered to perform oral sex on him and allow him to fondle her breasts.

Maloney was charged with driving under the influence, leaving the scene of a crash with damage, resisting an officer without violence, driving with a suspended license and attempted bribery of a public servant.

A Florida man who allegedly threatened to commit suicide and hurt officers on Facebook attacked cops when they arrived at his home to check on him, starting an all-out brawl that shocked everyone.

Joshua Patrick Hilt, 42, got a visit from officers at his Orlando home on Thursday after he allegedly posted the messages, which weren't released by police, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

When they arrived, Hilt went berserk and ripped off his clothes. An officer tackled Hilt as he attempted to gouge the cop's eye out, the paper reports. Hilt was unsuccessful -- but the two exchanged punches several times before a second officer jumped on Hilt's legs and Tased him.

WESH reports that Hilt grabbed the Taser and used it on the first officer. The second officer tried to pull the Taser away but was shocked in the process.

The fight continued as pepper spray and batons were used on Hilt. In turn, he broke one of their radios. Nothing worked to stop him until several more officers arrived and subdued the suspect.

At least four officers were injured in the melee. Two were treated at the scene and two others were checked into a local hospital with minor injuries, News 13 reports.

Hilt, who officers say will undergo a mental health examination, was charged with five counts of aggravated battery on an officer, three counts of depriving an officer's means of communication, five counts of resisting arrest and indecent exposure.

A woman and her ex-boyfriend were arrested after deputies say they tortured her roommate for several hours Wednesday over missing rent money.

The victim was hogtied with duct tape, seared with hot oil and an iron, stabbed, pistol-whipped, beaten and kicked for hours before he was finally able to escape by jumping through a window.

The victim, whose name was not released, told deputies that the suspects tried to shoot him as he ran to a neighbor's home for help.

Lattista Moore, 26, and the victim lived together in a home near Orlando, an arrest report said. When Moore realized she was missing about $3,500 in rent money, she blamed her roommate.

Moore called her ex-boyfriend, 27-year-old Kensy Mehu, and two of his friends to teach her roommate a lesson, the report said.

When the victim was found, the report says, he still had bloody duct tape wrapped around his face. The man had severe burns on his back and right shoulder and numerous stab wounds all over his body, including a large gash on his abdomen.

"The acts were imminently dangerous to (the victim) and demonstrated a depraved mind without regard for human life," the report said.

Both Mehu and Moore were arrested Thursday on kidnapping and attempted murder charges. Deputies have not said if their two friends will be arrested. They were not named in the report.

For six years, Alex Mesa has been running backwards throughout Miami Beach. He's appeared in tourists' YouTube videos and even completed an entire 5k in reverse.

On Saturday, police interrupted his jog.

WTVJ reported that four officers responding to a 911 call ticketed Mesa for obstructing traffic. Sgt. Robert Hernandez of the Miami Beach Police Department told the station that authorities witnessed Mesa jogging between cars.

Mesa allegedly told officers he wouldn't stop running backwards in the street. He told WTVJ he believes police singled him out because they learned of a past drug charge.

According to the Miami Sun Post Weekly, Mesa runs backwards two or three times a week for about two hours. He makes exercise a priority -- especially because in 1993 he learned he was HIV positive. He also suffers from cirrhosis, a liver condition made worse from his past with drug and alcohol addiction.

Now, he's working to recover and turn his life -- like his running -- around.

"Every time I take one step jogging backwards I dedicate it to [God] because that is a miracle," he told Sun Post Weekly. "I represent what supposedly is not possible."

A woman and her ex-boyfriend were arrested after deputies say they tortured her roommate for several hours Wednesday over missing rent money.

The victim was hogtied with duct tape, seared with hot oil and an iron, stabbed, pistol-whipped, beaten and kicked for hours before he was finally able to escape by jumping through a window.

The victim, whose name was not released, told deputies that the suspects tried to shoot him as he ran to a neighbor's home for help.

Lattista Moore, 26, and the victim lived together in a home near Orlando, an arrest report said. When Moore realized she was missing about $3,500 in rent money, she blamed her roommate.

Moore called her ex-boyfriend, 27-year-old Kensy Mehu, and two of his friends to teach her roommate a lesson, the report said.

When the victim was found, the report says, he still had bloody duct tape wrapped around his face. The man had severe burns on his back and right shoulder and numerous stab wounds all over his body, including a large gash on his abdomen.

"The acts were imminently dangerous to (the victim) and demonstrated a depraved mind without regard for human life," the report said.

Both Mehu and Moore were arrested Thursday on kidnapping and attempted murder charges. Deputies have not said if their two friends will be arrested. They were not named in the report.

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - South Florida is fighting a growing infestation of one of the world's most destructive invasive species: the giant African land snail, which can grow as big as a rat and gnaw through stucco and plaster.

More than 1,000 of the mollusks are being caught each week in Miami-Dade and 117,000 in total since the first snail was spotted by a homeowner in September 2011, said Denise Feiber, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Residents will soon likely begin encountering them more often, crunching them underfoot as the snails emerge from underground hibernation at the start of the state's rainy season in just seven weeks, Feiber said.

The snails attack "over 500 known species of plants ... pretty much anything that's in their path and green," Feiber said.

In some Caribbean countries, such as Barbados, which are overrun with the creatures, the snails' shells blow out tires on the highway and turn into hurling projectiles from lawnmower blades, while their slime and excrement coat walls and pavement.

"It becomes a slick mess," Feiber said.

A typical snail can produce about 1,200 eggs a year and the creatures are a particular pest in homes because of their fondness for stucco, devoured for the calcium content they need for their shells.

The snails also carry a parasitic rat lungworm that can cause illness in humans, including a form of meningitis, Feiber said, although no such cases have yet been identified in the United States.

EXOTIC INVASION

The snails' saga is something of a sequel to the Florida horror show of exotic species invasions, including the well-known infestation of giant Burmese pythons, which became established in the Everglades in 2000. There is a long list of destructive non-native species that thrive in the state's moist, subtropical climate.

Experts gathered last week in Gainesville, Florida, for a Giant African Land Snail Science Symposium, to seek the best ways to eradicate the mollusks, including use of a stronger bait approved recently by the federal government.

Feiber said investigators were trying to trace the snail infestation source. One possibility being examined is a Miami Santeria group, a religion with West African and Caribbean roots, which was found in 2010 to be using the large snails in its rituals, she said. But many exotic species come into the United States unintentionally in freight or tourists' baggage.

"If you got a ham sandwich in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, or an orange, and you didn't eat it all and you bring it back into the States and then you discard it, at some point, things can emerge from those products," Feiber said.

Authorities are expanding a series of announcements on buses, billboards and in movie theaters urging the public to be on the lookout.

The last known Florida invasion of the giant mollusks occurred in 1966, when a boy returning to Miami from a vacation in Hawaii brought back three of them, possibly in his jacket pockets. His grandmother eventually released the snails into her garden where the population grew in seven years to 17,000 snails. The state spent $1 million and 10 years eradicating them.

Feiber said many people unfamiliar with the danger viewed the snails as cute pets.

"They're huge, they move around, they look like they're looking at you ... communicating with you, and people enjoy them for that," Feiber said. "But they don't realize the devastation they can create if they are released into the environment where they don't have any natural enemies and they thrive."

South Florida is under attack, and the non-native species threatening to wreak havoc seems innocent enough: It's not the giant Burmese pythons that made a home in the Everglades in 2000, nor a ravenous, land-walking fish like the Asian carp that have been eating through waterways farther up north.

No, this foreign invader is a snail.

But what a snail it is. The giant African land snail "can grow as big as a rat and gnaw through stucco and plaster," says Reuters' Barbara Liston. Since the monstrous mollusks were first noticed in the Miami-Dade County area in September 2011, researchers and vigilant homeowners have caught at least 117,000 of them, or about 1,000 a week. And "residents will soon likely begin encountering them more often, crunching them underfoot as the snails emerge from underground hibernation at the start of the state's rainy season in just seven weeks."

Just how big and bad are these slow-moving menaces? "The largest stretch 8 inches," says Zack Peterson in the Ocala StarBanner. "The oldest live nine years. The busiest lay up to 1,200 eggs" a year. They eat at least 500 species of plants, plus the stucco and plaster that provide calcium for their shells. And if that's not disturbing enough, the snails "even carry a parasitic nematode that can lead to meningitis in humans" — though no cases of the pathogen, rat lungworm, have been found among humans in the U.S. yet. (Watch raw footage of the snails below.)

They sound like "monsters from hell sent to punish us," or at least Florida, says Michael Ballaban at Jalopnik. But "perhaps the worst part of the invading monster snails is that if you hit one on the highway their shells are hard enough to cause a blowout." They can also turn deadly when a lawnmower hits one, flinging the shell out at high velocity. And then there's the slime trails they leave everywhere. "It becomes a slick mess," Denise Feiber, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, tells Reuters.

This isn't Florida's first battle with the giant African land snail. The Sunshine State won the last war — in the 1960s, after a boy brought three snails home from Hawaii — but it wasn't cheap or easy. Those three snails turned to 17,000 in seven years, and beating them took 10 years and $1 million. "Feiber said she doesn't want this eradication project to last that long," reports the StarBanner's Peterson. So last week, her department held a strategy roundtable with experts from across the U.S. and Canada.

How did this invasion start? "One possibility being examined is a Miami Santeria group, a religion with West African and Caribbean roots, which was found in 2010 to be using the large snails in its rituals," says Retuers' Liston. Or somebody could have brought them in as pets, like in 1966. Or it could have just been an accident, like this decidedly unsavory possibility:

"If you got a ham sandwich in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic, or an orange, and you didn't eat it all and you bring it back into the States and then you discard it, at some point, things can emerge from those products," Feiber said. [Reuters]
Miami-Dade is ground zero, but "unfortunately, the invasion is not limited to Florida," says Josh Mogerman in the Chicagoist. These "ticking environmental time bombs" have been found in upper Midwestern schools, pet shops, and even one private breeder's operation. And it would only take one escaped or released snail to spark a new infestation, Feiber tells Reuters:

They're huge, they move around, they look like they're looking at you... communicating with you, and people enjoy them for that.... But they don't realize the devastation they can create if they are released into the environment where they don't have any natural enemies and they thrive.

__________________
Adopt a Chief: I adopt Eric Murray
Get after it son

One teen from Vero Beach, Fla., learned the hard way that it's not against the law for moms to be annoying.

Police arrested Vincent Valvo, 19, after he allegedly called 911 twice on Thursday because "he didn't like how his mom was talking to him."

WTSP reported that authorities warned the teen after his first call that he shouldn't contact 911 for non-emergencies. Apparently, the message was not received.

After his second alleged call -- also made to complain about his mother -- police arrested Valvo outside his home. He allegedly smelled like alcohol and exhibited slow and slurred speech, according to an Indian County Sheriff's Office report obtained by The Smoking Gun.

Valvo was released from jail Thursday afternoon after posting $500 bond, WTSP reported. He was arrested for "abuse of 911." According to the Sun-Sentinel, this was his third booking in the past year.

The 19-year-old's nonemergency dial follows a string of unorthodox 911 calls. In February, a Texas woman allegedly called police to have cigarettes delivered to her home. Around the same time, a little boy in Massachusetts dialed 911 to report his mother because he didn't want to go to bed.

A man from Bonita Springs, Fla., allegedly broke into a zoo and cut the locks on nearly every cage -- including those of a wild boar, mountain lion and bobcat.

Steven Trew, 58, was arrested Monday morning for burglary and damaging the property of Everglades Wonder Gardens, WINK News reported. He allegedly admitted to being drunk when arrested.

Jack Wollman, a zoo employee, said that when he arrived at work on Monday, he noticed a deer, pigs, and birds out of their cages, according to The Associated Press. He and the zoo's owner, David Piper, also found the property's back gate sawed open.

"It was pitch black," Wollman told the AP. "Then I heard the flamingos and when you hear flamingos you know someone is there. I saw a guy by the barn area and chased him to the parking lot."

Wollman allegedly tackled the suspect -- later identified as Trew -- and detained him until authorities arrived.

Luckily, none of the dangerous animals left their cages, The News-Press reported, but one deer was killed on a nearby parkway, and one deer remains missing.

Piper, the owner, said that Trew allegedly committed the crime because he was angry that the zoo is set to close on April 21.

According to Lee County Sheriff's Office, Trew remains in custody on $30,000 and $1,500 bonds.

A carnival worker may get more than a slap on the wrist after being accused of slapping the buttocks of a juvenile female.

Nicholas Berg, 28, was charged with simple battery after allegedly slapping the girl on her buttocks as she started to get on a slide in the funhouse at a carnival in New Port Richey, Fla., this past weekend, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

A witness told deputies the suspect appeared to touch the girl's behind without permission, but Berg told police he only touched her on her back.

He was released after posting $500 bond.

Berg isn't the only carnival worker who has been accused of acting inappropriately with underage customers.

In September, 2011, Illinois carnival worker James West, 25, and his 20-year-old girlfriend were accused of sending sexually explicit photos and text messages to a 16-year-old high school student.

But those accusations seem tame compared to the case of Florida carny Gregory Matthew Bruni.

In January, Bruni was accused of running naked into a house, masturbating in the living room, defecating in two places and drinking the contents of the vacuum.

The 22-year-old Floridian was arrested yesterday for domestic battery after she grabbed and yanked on her former boyfriend’s penis during a dispute inside the victim’s Tampa residence.

Wallace, pictured at right, had gone to the home of Antonio Marquis Williams to pick up the ex-couple’s daughter, according to a Manatee County Sheriff’s Office report.

Williams told deputies that the pair argued because Wallace wanted to resume dating. However, “Antonio did not want another relationship at this time,” investigators noted.

The argument then turned violent “when the offender grabbed Antonio’s penis with her right hand and began pulling on it which caused pain to Antonio.” Williams defended himself by grabbing Wallace’s forearms “to prevent further violence.”

The sheriff’s report does not detail what, if any, clothing Williams was wearing when Wallace allegedly accessed his genitals.

Though Williams refused to file charges, Wallace was nonetheless arrested for misdemeanor battery and booked into the Manatee County jail (where bail has yet to be set). She is scheduled for a May 21 court appearance.